The ice-bucket challenge is a one-hit wonder: The cold, hard truth

SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son takes part in the ALS ice-bucket challenge in Tokyo on Aug. 20, 2014.

Glance through your now ice-water-doused Facebook feed, and it may occur to you that the ice-bucket challenge — in which people dump ice water on their heads and film it to raise awareness about ALS — is among the most successful charity campaigns in recent history. But is it actually a short-sighted effort?

By many accounts, the ice-bucket challenge’s success is staggering. As of Friday, The ALS Association had received $53.3 million in donations, up from a mere $2.2 million during the same period last year, and the association attracted more than 630,000 new donors during this period. Celebrities — from George Bush to Ben Affleck — have taken part in it, the media has written hundreds of stories on the topic, and pretty much every American has seen at least one — if not dozens — of icy videos on their social media feeds. Those, no doubt, are statistics any charity would envy.

And it’s easy to see why the ice-bucket challenge has been so successful. It both supports a worthy cause — as many as 30,000 Americans at any given time are suffering from ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s Disease, a sometimes deadly disease that leaves many sufferers paralyzed -- and entertains people (admit it, it’s hard not to click on videos of people dousing themselves in ice water). Plus, the campaign itself is easy — if chilly — to participate in, and when people do participate, they create shareable content that’s fun — or at least funny — for other people to watch and then themselves take part in.

But experts caution that campaigns like this have a number of pitfalls and may not be a great long-term strategy. “It’s caught people’s attention in a very viral way, but it’s not a sustainable funding model,” says Eileen Heisman, the CEO of the National Philanthropic Trust, a public charity that provides philanthropic expertise to donors, foundations and financial institutions, and this year’s recipient of the Outstanding Fundraising Professional award by the Association of Fundraising Professionals. “It will lose its novelty — people think ‘Been there, done that’ — and they look for something else new and clever.”

Is the ice-bucket challenge a one-hit wonder?

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The viral Ice-bucket challenge has raised more than $53 million in donations, but can the success of this campaign be replicated? Charity Navigator CEO Ken Berger warns there could be a donation backlash. He joins the News Hub with Sara Murray.

In other words, this campaign is great at getting one-off donations, but not at creating a real connection with the cause and thus getting the kind of long-term donations that organizations need, she says. “If you interviewed people [who donated], some wouldn’t know what ALS is,” she says.

Or, as Ken Berger, the CEO of Charity Navigator, which rates charities for consumers, says about the campaign: “It’s like a flash in the ice bucket — a mile wide and an inch deep.” He adds that you’re now seeing an “explosion of donations that will very quickly peter out,” likely within weeks.

Indeed, there’s already a weariness and backlash among some about the campaign. Some people complain that the campaign now has taken on an “all about me” mentality. After all, you either give money to the charity or you donate to ALSA.org; judging from the number of videos on social media, many do the latter. Some say that giving to ALS means people won’t give as much to other charities. And others still are just sick of seeing all the videos on their social media feeds.

But perhaps the more important, and potentially troubling, question is this: what’s next? Berger says that the key hurdle here is how the ALS Association manages the massive influx of donations, something that many organizations in the past, when faced with similar situations (say when donations pour in following a natural disaster) have struggled to do. “Do they have the capacity and wisdom to step up and manage this massive influx in an accountable, transparent and effective manner,” he says. “Often, the answer is no.” The ALS Association didn’t reply to a request for comment.

Still, even if the ALS Association struggles to manage this influx of money, the donations peter out, and the backlash increases, Berger points out that it’s unlikely that the ice-bucket challenge negatively impacts the association’s long-term fundraising efforts, and it may even gain some longer term donors thanks to this challenge. In other words, even if the ALS Association isn’t able to replicate these eye-popping levels of fundraising every year, it’s a win for ALS, even if that win comes with a few troubles.

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